Watershed Management
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Water sheds into lakes from surrounding hills
and
houses outside Orlando, Florida. |
What is a watershed? A watershed is simply the geographic area
through which water flows across the land and drains into a common body of
water, whether a stream, river,
lake, or ocean. It includes tributaries (wetlands, streams, canals,
ditches, etc.) as well
as stormwater runoff from the land, the quality and quantity of which are
affected by all the alterations to the land--agriculture, roadways, urban
development, and the like. Watersheds are usually separated from
other watersheds by naturally elevated areas.
Why are watersheds important? Because the surface water features
and stormwater runoff within a watershed ultimately drain to other bodies
of water, it is essential to consider these downstream impacts when
developing and implementing water quality protection and restoration
actions. Everything upstream ends up downstream.
Florida's Watershed Management Program was created to embrace
this holistic, ecosystem-based approach and to integrate Florida's
longstanding water quality protection programs into more effective,
comprehensive action. The program specifically implements the provisions
of the Florida Watershed Restoration Act of 1999,
section 403.067, Florida Statutes, but it encompasses other legal
authorities, voluntary programs and practices, public education, and
financial assistance, all directed at cleaning up water pollution or
preventing it in the first place.
Watersheds are natural features. In order to best protect and restore
them, DEP has defined some organizing boundaries based on these natural features to make
environmental management easier, more effective and more uniform across programs. The map
below reflects the major identified watersheds in Florida.
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Major Identified Watersheds in Florida |
The watershed program is divided into six areas
that implement water quality protection and restoration activities
directly or coordinate with other programs in a broad-based strategy of
resource protection.
Watershed Monitoring and Data
Management - Conducts Florida’s surface and
ground water monitoring programs, including cooperative efforts with other
agencies in the state that monitor water quality and quantity. It also integrates
monitoring data into a centralized statewide repository.
- More water quality data and other sources of environmental
information are available at DEP's
Water Data Central.
Watershed Assessment - Using data
from the monitoring program and other sources, this section evaluates the impacts of
wastewater facilities, industries, agriculture, septic tanks, urban
development and other sources of pollution on Florida's surface waters. It
identifies surface waters that do not meet water quality standards
("impaired waters") and establishes the restoration objectives necessary to
clean them up, called total maximum
daily loads or TMDLs.
- What is a TMDL? A scientific
determination of the maximum amount of a given pollutant that a surface
water can absorb and still meet the water quality standards that protect
human health and aquatic life. Water bodies that do not meet water
quality standards are identified as impaired for the particular
pollutants of concern--nutrients, bacteria, mercury, etc.--and TMDLs must be developed, adopted and
implemented for those pollutants to reduce pollutants and clean up the
water body.
- The threshold limits on pollutants in surface waters--Florida's
surface water quality standards on which TMDLs are based--are set forth
primarily in rule
62-302, Florida Administrative Code, and the associated table of
water quality criteria.
Watershed Planning and Coordination - Coordinates the activities of the watershed restoration program with local
government and business leaders, environmental groups, interested citizens,
and other local stakeholders. Staff in this section lead the development of
local Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs) to implement the requirements of
TMDLs.
- What is a BMAP? A comprehensive
set of strategies--permit limits on wastewater facilities, urban and
agricultural best management practices, conservation programs, financial
assistance and revenue generating activities, etc.--designed to
implement the pollutant reductions established by the TMDL. These
broad-based plans are developed in conjunction with local
stakeholders--they rely on local input and local commitment--and they
are adopted by Secretarial Order to be enforceable.
Nonpoint Source Management -
Implements Florida's "Section 319" grant program,
which provides some $9 million annually to local governments to
implement projects--stormwater retrofits, best management practices, public
education--that reduce or promote the reduction of contaminants from
stormwater and other sources of pollution that do not originate from
specific discharges.
NPDES Stormwater - A regulatory
program that implements permitting, compliance and enforcement activities
associated with certain urban stormwater systems, industrial activities and
construction sites. Florida's program operates under an agreement with the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to fulfill the requirements of the
federal National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES).
Ground Water Protection - Assesses the quality of Florida’s ground
water resources, which serve as the source of drinking water for more than 90% of Florida’s
residents and visitors, and works with the watershed program and other DEP
programs to assure protection of these resources, which are intimately
connected with Florida's surface waters through spring systems, wetlands,
ground water recharge areas, and other places where surface and ground
waters interact.
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